6 Places to Celebrate Chinese New Year in Bengaluru

One would wonder how the Chinese New Year affects us, but it does. After all, their food is pretty much our national cuisine! This year is the year of the monkey, which might not mean much to us, but the absolutely delicious food some of the oriental restaurants in the city are dishing out sure does make us happy. 

The Fatty Bao, Indiranagar – Chef Prashanth and his team have put together a menu of fabulous New Year dishes. Choose from dragon sushi, jiaozi, Cantonese sweet and sour chicken, baozi, ramen noodles and steamed red snapper and some amazing cocktails, including Lotus Red, Oriental Blossom, Sparkling Lantern and more, each with their own significance.

The Lantern, The Ritz-Carlton – Adorned with lanterns to mark this special day, Lantern also plans to invite its guests to light sky lanterns to make the evening memorable. The elaborate menu will feature dim sums (such as the baked char sui bao), scallop and prawn dumplings, the lamb roll with black pepper sauce or the authentic truffle-scented edamame money pouch, and the hong sau tofu — deep-fried bean curd braised with shiitake mushroom and bamboo shoots in a vegetarian oyster sauce.

Memories of China, Taj Vivanta – There is a special À la carte menu with almost 120 different kinds of dishes at Memories of China. From the golden fried prawns with preserved egg yolk for appetisers to the steamed baby lobster with tauso or soya garlic sauce for the main course, the pine nut, cashew nut, and chestnut sweet dumplings are only some of the treats on offer here.

Szechwan Court, The Oberoi – A specialty Chinese restaurant, Szechuan Court is cooking up a storm. There is going to be the double boiled Chinese mushroom soup with dried chillies, sesame and cashew nut chicken with Chinese rice wine, lobster tossed with pickled chilli and asparagus on egg custard, crisp whole grouper with Szechwan chilli sauce, and the Shanghai style braised pork belly on the menu. And the best part is, you can choose either from their set menu or go À la carte.

Hongkong, Church Street – A variety of dumplings, which is incidentally considered to be quite a lucky thing to eat during the New Year, await you at Hongkong. From John Dory and dill, spicy bean dim sums, to the chicken pot stickers and even assorted mushroom roulades, the spread will definitely make you happy.

Nasi and Mee, Koramangala – Now this Asian joint might not have a special menu in place, but what they are doing is offering pineapple tarts on the day of Chinese New Year. The gifting and serving of pineapple tarts is very much tradition in Singapore and Malaysia as part of the celebrations. These tarts are devoured by every household and accompany the customary feasting that goes on at the reunion dinner and the subsequent days that follow.  And, if you are lucky, you might even get those tarts for free, along with your meal, of course! 

Follow her @priyanandyblr